Kimi no Na wa must be one of the most popular titles in the industry now. Being a Shinkai Makoto fan, I was so eager to jump onto the bandwagon and definitely wasn't disappointed. This title not only brought about a refreshing concept of time-travel but also challenged gender roles in Japanese society through the gender-switching.

As with my other book reviews, I will not be showcasing every single page in this book but will be using several pages as examples for the different sections in the book. For starters, let's start with the book cover.

The front and back covers of the book covers. They take the official illustrations for both covers which also illustrates the main characters Taki and Mitsuha. While there's that, I wished they used the adult Mitsuha at the back of the book instead since I like the design of Adult Mitsuka!

The cover of the main book is printed in blue and gives a very calming feel to the series as well.

Opening to the first page gives us the title in both Japanese and English and the title of "Official Visual Guide". I call it a guidebook instead as there's also interviews and quite a bit of words in addition to the gorgeous pictures.I find the screencaps chosen very appropriate such as the one on this page which is a very nice moment in the movie and very memorable as well.

A two-page illustration of the comet for the content page. Anyone who watched the movie probably remembers this from Taki's scene.

A few more screencaps to show how pretty and detailed each frame is. I really love the details and calming feel of the backgrounds in Shinkai's films so I tend to buy all the visual guidebooks and artbooks available. This is by far the first series that has such a huge volume of goods available for choosing!

We have sketches as well and these act as dividers for the different sections. There is also beauty in using these since are very different from the carefully drawn, colored and perfected background illustrations. With these sketches, it feels like we are given a chance to feel the series at its rudimentary stages.

A brief overlook of the series with several screencaps. There are also several taglines featured too.

This is the start of the next section and we have the gender-switched couple to remind us of the whole plot of the series once again.

This next section is on the voice actors of the main cast and I am a very huge fan of Taki's seiyuu -- Kamiki Ryuunosuke. Kamiki is quite a popular actor and isn't actually considered a Seiyuu. Perhaps it is because of this that their not-so polished voices make the characters more natural and endearing?

Next is an interview with everyone's favorite Shinkai Makoto! If you are a fan of him like myself, it really pays to have this book~

Of course, we have no lack of interview pages as well~

Next up are genga sketches of several scenes in the movie. Like I said before, this brings us back to the preparation of the movie in its rudimentary stages which brings us fans much closer to the series.

Also , we finally have very detailed background. The lighting for the scenes are so pretty ~

And last but not the least, we shall end off with the character guide. I'll be using Mitsuha as an example. She has about 5 full pages to showcase her different outfits, expressions and hairstyles. Taki has almost the same number of pages while the other characters have, obviously, less pages.

We also have sketches of the layout of the town Mitsuha was in and some iconic buildings too.

This iconic object also deserves its own place in the book. We not only get how it looks on its own but also on Taki.

We have some motions in the show and there are examples of how it works and gets processed and changed into the 2D form. Here's to Taki sketching the town!

Finally, I'll like to bring this image up where the different strings are slowly weaved together. The different patterns on each actually bring each other very well together as complements and the amount of colors actually brings the image and actual scene to life. In the series itself, you can even see the texture of the string in that simple scene!

Would you recommend this book?Of course! If you are a fan of the movie, this is the perfect item to get to keep a piece of the movie by your side. By flipping through the book, all the appropriate screencaps will punch you through the gut with feels. This is definitely one of the impulse buys that I'm proud of getting!~ Reina-rin

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Milkcananime aims to increase the exposure of Anime, Manga and Japanese Culture through blogging and illustrative works. We want to contribute to the otaku community, and increase the level of love people have for anything Japanese!